Shutter Island, Gustav Mahler and Music + Film

I can't believe I missed this movie while it was in theaters. I purchased my Dell A215 PC Multimedia speakers and subwoofer in 2001. I'm thankful for them. They've done their best to enhance several hundred movies that have played on my computer and they've done a pretty darn good job. But, man, they were the wrong choice for Shutter Island. I needed some Cypress Hill concert speakers.


Martin Scorsesee was honored this year at the Critic's Choice Awards with the Music + Film tribute, replete with Bob Dylan and Leo himself. Robbie Robertson has composed for Scorsese since they worked together in 1981. Robbie Robertson, I've learned from this article, has been listening to avant garde composers since the late 60s. Other movies have used bits and pieces from the avant garde, other directors and movie makers have been honored with the Music + Film tribute, but no movie and no movie director or movie maker has achieved what Robertson and Scorsese did with Shutter Island. Gosh, I love my speakers, but they were outmatched by the score-script combo of a tuned-in Robertson and the cultivated Scorsese.


There are two reasons to watch Shutter Island again. (Spoiler Alert) Shutter Island is a testament to the need for theater re-runs. This movie is like one of those pictures where there is more than one image to be seen. You know, the ones that show a rabbit and an old woman. It depends on your point of view which you see. Finishing the movie and then thinking back through it you'll recognize that everyone was in on the role play: the nurses laughing when Teddy is questioning them, the guard being nervous about one patient physically harming another, the frustration of the board of directors when Teddy barges in their meetings, and more. This is a cool way to make movies and Scorsese is all about making cool movies, of the noir-thriller-throw-back sort. The second reason to watch this movie again and maybe again, is to notice and really appreciate how the works of less famous composers are filtered in, layered and used in such a novel way, adding texture and not just CSI-X-files foreboding--"But the real brilliance of this score is that the music doesn’t cue the action or explain anything. It adds emotional texture, serving as an alternate universe for a film that has at its essence an alternate universe." 


Watch it again and notice where John Adam's "Christian Zeal and Activity" shows up. Pay attention to the use of Brian Eno and Lou Harrison. This will take some leg work as you'll have to listen to and read up on these folks. But then you'll start to realize how cool it is what Robertson has done with this score. You'll gain a whole new appreciation for how music can sit in a film or push a film or change a film or take over a film. Then you'll realize that Scorsese and Robertson don't use music for any  smoke and mirror reasons. It's used here to accompany, foster, and grow an idea - more honorable traits if you ask me. 


Lastly, Gustav Mahler. Composers have been featured many times in other movies. Most recently, without overt mention, though, in Melancholia. Implied but never stated was the line of dialogue: "Oh, you're listening to Wagner as the world is about to end in a fiery explosion of planets colliding?" Mentioning a composer is a way for movie makers to tip their hat to greatness. It's a way for movie makers to say, "Hey, this piece is so necessary for this movie that we are going to have the actors actually engage with the soundtrack." In other words, it's not a soundtrack, the characters hear and sense the mood changing for themselves. We, the actors, and the composers are on the stage together. Scorsese has seen bunches of movies where this has been the case. Before Tarantino and after Bergman, Scorsese makes use of what others have done well in movies that he likes. Robbie Robertson and Martin need the viewer to recognize what Gustav Mahler has meant for music, film and our culture. If anything, I hope you can appreciate this as much as I try to. Mahler was Austrian and was banned during the Nazi era. His work is known for being robust, novel, and unpredictable. He makes use of foreshadowing and in moments of dissonance he'll often do something completely absurd. The fact that Teddy recognized Mahler playing as he met the doctors in the throes of an elaborate role play is significant. For him, and for millions that lived with the atrocities of WWII, Mahler was a lynchpin in narratives constructed by sufferers who attempted to synthesize dissonance, atrocity, absurdity and beauty. Mahler's own tragic life can be heard in the piano quartet even having written it as a young student. Indeed, Mahler deserves a leading role in a high quality movie like this one.


Sometimes a thriller-horror movie strikes a chord on a personal level thereby placating the uneasy viewer. I was embarrassingly jacked about this soundtrack. I was able to stomach the creepy and embrace the broad strokes of Robertson's and Scorsese's awesomeness because of a score that did more than try and creep me out. It helped that the score featured a whole bunch of composers that I really enjoy listening to. I bet Joel Davis would have some cool stuff to say about this movie. We'll do our best to get him to weigh in on it all.